Not Backing Down
by Bradykins98
Summary: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are on the run. Hunted by Gaia's army in Tartarus, every day is a fight to get to the Doors of Death. But Gaia didn't count on someone to help them. Ex-US Military Police, drifter, war hero , stone-cold killer, now the world's only hope, Jack Reacher is in for quite literally a hell of a ride. T for violence.
1. Chapter 1: Meet Jack Reacher

Not Backing Down

A PJO and Jack Reacher Crossover

_Heroes don't have to be braver than anyone else_

_They are just braver for a few seconds longer._

Chapter 1: Meet Jack Reacher

The bus was nearly silent as it cruised slowly along the highway. The only noise came from a young boy's iPod that was turned on far too loud to be safe with headphones plugged in, the steady revving of the engine, and one rather large Asian man's snoring, which filled the whole bus. Sat next to the Asian was a giant of a man, well muscled, with a face that attracts a lot of female attention, not that he minds. He has seen and committed more violent and heroic acts than everybody else on this bus combined. He doesn't want to make the world a better place, but he does want to get rid of those who make it worse. His name is Jack Reacher.

Reacher is getting bored, which is hard for him as he usually makes tricky arithmetic problems in his head for long journeys like this. But he is running out of problems, and the man sitting next to him is getting on his nerves. One thing Reacher hates is loud snoring, and he's glad he doesn't do it in his sleep, as hypocrisy is another pet hate of his. Thankfully the man has been awake for most of the journey; otherwise his monotonous snoring might have drilled itself into Reacher's brain and scarred him for the rest of his life.

Finally, just as Reacher thinks he can't take much more, the man wakes up. Reacher inwardly sighs with relief. Insanity is destined for another day, it seems. The man pulls out his mobile phone to make a call. Reacher guesses it's about business, as he is wearing a smart suit, slightly damp on the left side of his collar due to him drooling in his sleep. His guess is proven right, as he obviously is addressing his boss, who is angry that he is late.

The bus finally pulls off the highway, which meant they were nearing their destination. That's good, as Reacher needs a new set of clothes; the ones he's wearing are getting dirty. Reacher does not do washing or laundry, instead choosing to embody the throwaway culture of America by simply buying a new set of clothes when his old ones are no good. He then donates the old set to charities. It's a method that works well for him. And for giant Africans.

The bus pulls up around half an hour later, and Reacher is one of the first to disembark. He quickly finds the nearest men's clothes store, entering without a second thought. He browses through the store, inspecting the clothes that will fit him with a keen eye. He chooses a pair of loose jeans, a red and white chequered shirt and a light brown leather jacket. The woman who serves him gives him that look that many give him, the sort of silent way of saying; _I'm free tonight if you are_. So Reacher does what he always does in these situations. He simply ignores the look, thanks the woman and walks to the nearest motel.

He quickly checks in, and gets out his foldable toothbrush and wallet, his only possessions, and places them on the bed. He uses a disposable razor that was provided with the room to shave, and changes into his new clothes. By this time it's around 6:30PM, so Reacher decides to get something to eat. He leaves his room, picking up his wallet and toothbrush and placing them in his pocket. He once again steps into the crisp autumn chill.

As he walks down the street, Reacher notices he's being followed. Around three metres behind him are two males, hoods covering their faces. To prove his theory, he turns down a narrow alley. As he suspected, they turn down the alley as well. He can hear one of them, taller than the other murmuring under his breath.

"He's slightly gigantic Nico."

"He is really tall."

"That's what I just said, idiot. No wonder you spend so much time around dead people."

"Shut up Jason, we're just asking him." The shorter one then approaches him. "Uh, sir. Are you Jack Reacher?" He asks him. The man is actually a boy, much to his surprise. He has greasy black hair and looks like an average twelve or thirteen year-old, apart from his eyes. They have a certain haunted look to them, like the boy has seen too much for someone so young.

"No, sorry you must be mistaken. I'm Jimmie Reece."

"Well, I don't think you are." He doesn't even appear slightly thrown by what Reacher just said.

"How can you prove I'm not?"

"Well, Jimmie Reece played second base for the Yankees in 1930. He died in 1994. I know, I met him." Normally, this wouldn't happen, it would be the inquirer who was thrown when Reacher gave another name (he always goes for Yankees second basemen. Don't ask why.), this time it's Reacher that's thrown. He doesn't have another way of dealing with this. But, he does tower above the boy, and the other one, Jason, despite being tall is still shorter than Reacher. He knows he can take them both if push comes to shove. He smiles and raises his hands.

"Well, you've caught me, so what do you want?"  
"Help."

"What with? School bullies? Not getting pocket money?" Reacher jokes. The boy's face is still as stone cold as ever.

"Come with me and I'll explain."

"Sorry, not going anywhere" Reacher was getting frustrated with the boy now.

"Sorry Mr Reacher, but that's not an option." The boy said firmly, pulling a bronze dagger out of his jacket. Why does it have to be a knife, Reacher thought. Why not a gun, or a rock? Reacher hates dealing with knife-armed opponents. He feels he has no talent for it whatsoever. It's the only aspect of hand to hand combat he feels that way about.

"Okay kid, put the knife down, and no one has to get hurt." He says slowly, trying to calm the boy down.

"Then come with me, and no one has to get hurt anyway." Reacher was getting nervous, playing various ways the confrontation could go in his mind. The taller one, who has said nothing so far, speaks up.

"Reacher, I really don't want anyone to get hurt, so please, come with us. We don't want to hurt you." The taller one is, much to Reacher's surprise, also a boy, with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, much like Reacher. They could have been father and son, it was so alike.

"Look, you both should be in school right now, not trying to kidnap someone, so calm down, and walk away." It is then that the smaller boy lunges at Reacher.

He is trying to club him on the head with the pommel of the dagger, and Reacher sidesteps the attack. He uses his right hand to grab the hand holding the knife, pulling it down. He then punches the boy in the face with his left twice, before striking the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel before delivering one last punch to knock him to the floor. He feels bad about hurting a boy, but it had to be done. He then feels a flash of pain at the back of his head, and everything goes black.

* * *

Jason sheaths his Imperial Gold gladius, after hitting Reacher over the head with the pommel, so he is knocked out. He then turns over to Nico, offering his hand to help him up.

"You alright there?" He asks. Nico looks furious, ignoring Jason's hand and getting up. There is a trickle of blood coming down the corner of his mouth from where Reacher hit him. He expected him to be strong, but that felt like a sledgehammer.

"Fine," He then looks at Reacher's limp body. "Holy Hades Jason, how hard did you hit him?" He asks incredulously. Jason shrugs an answer. Nico then pulls out a mobile phone out, and slides it into Reacher's inside pocket.

"You sure this is safe? For him, I mean?" Jason asks, sounding unsure. He still didn't fully trust Nico after it had been revealed he knew about both camps all along.

"Yes, perfectly fine. Monsters will ignore him as he is a mortal, but he's one of the only one's on Earth who can see through the Mist. With his skills and training, they'll be fine. We'll see Mr Reacher next at the Doors of Death." He answers, before pulling out a Celestial Bronze sword and a Glock 17 handgun out as well, the Glock being strapped onto Reacher by a holster, and the sword by its scabbard. Jason didn't ask where Nico got the gun, probably from the Stoll brothers. It was loaded with celestial bronze bullets, handmade by Leo in Bunker 9.

Jason looks at Reacher's unconscious face. He is about to be placed into the most dangerous place there was. It was unfair to ask this of him, but they needed someone to save them. Demigods never rely on mortals, not ever. But they are now. Jack Reacher is now the worlds only hope. Rachel said so in that weird way she says prophecies. Ella as well, at the same time.

_The Door's of Death two foes meet,_

_One of them, to death he has been beat._

_Now is the time of the master plan,_

_The giant of man's final stand._

* * *

**Authors Note: This one is for ****FanFiction ImagiNations crossover challenge. It's also the very first Reacher fanfic on here. I hope you all like the opening chapter, and please follow or favourite, as things are quite literally going to heat up in the next chapter. Please review and I hope you enjoyed this opening to Jack Reacher's most dangerous adventure ever. Please go onto the forum if you haven't already, and join in with one of the challenges, as we need more! Bradykins out.**


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell

Not Backing Down

A PJO and Jack Reacher Crossover

_Heroes don't have to be braver than anyone else, _

_They are just braver a few seconds longer._

Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell

When Reacher opens his eyes, he expects to see the ceiling of the room he is sleeping in. However, that isn't what he has now. Now, all he can see is the sky. But there isn't something quite right with it. Then he fully wakes up, and realises it's on fire. Reacher looks around him, and see's a pair of teenagers fighting… is that a _hydra?_ They look like they are struggling against it, trying to get at its side, but three heads are getting in the way. Reacher vaguely remembers hearing stories about it from his early childhood, on a Marine base in West Germany. You can't cut off a head, as two more will grow from it.

Reacher stands up, and brushes most of the dust off of him. It's then he notices that he has a bronze sword strapped to him, as well as a Glock 17 handgun. The Glock is a reliable handgun, adopted by many armies and police units across the globe. It is light, accurate, and holds seventeen 9mm rounds in a magazine. He pulls it out. It's loaded with a full mag. He cocks it, sending a round into the firing chamber. The round is bronze, like the sword for some reason, he notices as it enters the chamber.

He raises the Glock in a two-handed grip, safety catch off but finger off the trigger before he is ready to fire. He walks slowly towards the melee, keeping the pistol level and raised. He aims at the hydra's torso, aiming for where he thinks the heart is. Making sure the two teens are out of the line of fire, he slowly squeezes the trigger. The round pierces the hide, and the hydra roars in anger, but continues to ignore him. It seems intent on killing the teenagers, who haven't noticed the gunshot either. He fires again, stepping forward slowly, keeping his aim steady and even.

He fires another round, before the monster begins to slow its ferocious attacks. The two teens, which Reacher can now see are a boy and girl, also begin to slow down, looking like they just ran across Russia in a day. Reacher fires again, this time taking two steps forward and the monster weakens even more. Golden liquid is dripping from the wounds on its hide. It's an unusual sight, as Reacher is used to seeing crimson from gunshots, and a lot of it.

Not wanting to waste ammunition, he draw's his sword, after holstering his pistol. The blade is short and wide, designed for getting in close. It must weigh around fifty pounds, yet it feels light in his massive grip. The hydra is still entirely focused on the teenagers, completely ignoring Reacher. He realises this and charges forward, completely throwing caution to the wind.

He realises his mistake too late. One of the hydra's heads swings around, trying to get the two teenagers on their blind side. Unfortunately, it clubs Reacher on his right side, sending him flying ten feet back. He lets go of the sword, and slams against a ruined pillar. He grits his teeth, getting the all-too familiar pain of a broken rib. He still climbs to his feet, eyes scanning the ground for his sword. He finds it a few feet from the hydra's tail. Perfect.

The monster is now trying to incinerate the two teenagers, who have taken cover behind two ruined pillars. But now it can't see the two. It turns to Reacher. It looks like it's searching for its unseen aggressor, even though he's standing right in front of it. But whilst the hydra's back is turned, Reacher spots the two teenagers dash behind two different pillars. Seek cover, change position, textbook military tactics. He pulled himself up using a broken pillar. Reacher advances towards the Hydra, albeit this time more carefully.

He times his moment, and bursts forward towards his sword, ducking under the hydra's flailing tail as he grabs it, swinging it upwards as he rises. The sword slows under stiff resistance, before it comes through in a sweeping arc, albeit covered in blood. The hydra screams in agony as its still-flailing tail falls to the ground with a wet squelch. It turns around again, and Reacher instinctively charges it, ducking under its heads and thrusting forward with his sword in his right hand to allow for extra reach. The hydra gives out one last yelp of pain before exploding into golden dust, showering both Reacher and the teens in it.

* * *

Then Reacher turns to the teenagers. One is a boy, tall, muscular, with shaggy black hair and sea-green eyes. The other a girl, roughly sixteen-seventeen, although Reacher couldn't tell these days, with all that 'swag' and 'yolo' going round like the Black Death; the girl has blonde hair and blue eyes that scream intelligence. He pulls the Glock on them by pure instinct, drilled into him when facing armed strangers.

"Drop your weapons." He shouts at them. He must look a sight, he thinks as the adrenalin spike lowers in his system, covered in gold dust, with scratches and a gun. The two teens do as he says, probably thinking of a way to disarm him.

"Kick them over to me." He says, quieter but still sharply. When they hesitate, he shouts a "Now!" at them, and they comply. Now Reacher wanted answers. "Who are you?" He asks first.

"Could ask the same thing to you." The boy says back in an almost lazy drawl. The kind of speech that annoys Reacher.

"I thought you had to be polite to a man with a gun?" Reacher asks sarcastically, keeping the Glock aimed at the two.

"Sorry about Seaweed Brain here, he's a little slow at this sort of stuff. I'm Annabeth Chase, and he," The girl speaks, with a hint of a New York accent, "is Percy Jackson. Now, whoever you are please put your gun away so we can talk this through like normal people." She takes a nervous step forward and raised her hands in a surrendering gesture. Reacher tentatively lowered the gun, but kept his two-handed grip on it. He hates hurting kids. The two teenagers pick up their weapons, and walk back over to him.

"Where is this? Iraq? Afghanistan? Hell, Pakistan?" The desert environment suggested one of these countries. As an ex-US soldier and war hero, he'd probably be on the hit list for one of the terrorist groups in those countries.

"If this is one of those countries, how do you explain how the sky is on fire?" The boy, Percy, asks in return, the lazy drawl gone, replaced by the voice of someone who was used to this sort of situation. Now Reacher got a closer look at the two of them, he could tell that they'd been wherever they were now a fair amount of time. Both had a look that said _however bad you think you are, I'm worse_. They clearly hadn't met him before then. He shrugs an answer to Percy's question.

"True. So where is this?" Reacher responds. He notices he has two extra magazines for his Glock strapped to his chest, as well as a satellite phone.

"This may seem strange to you, but you're in Tartarus. As in, Tartarus, the Greek hell." Annabeth explains, a look on her face saying she knew how Reacher is feeling now.

"That explains the Hydra, but now what you two are doing here." Reacher says, seemingly unaffected by the earlier statement. Percy is surprised, to say the least.

"Sorry, but did you understand what Annabeth just said. You are in _Greek Hell_." He says the last words slowly to make his point clear. Reacher says nothing. Suddenly, the three hear a dull groaning behind them. Reacher spins round, raising the Glock into a stable stance as the other two ready their weapons. Reacher instantly recognises the US-style woodland camouflage uniform, and the M16's in the soldier's hands. He does not recognise, however, the rotting flesh or the unnatural gait with which they shuffle towards the trio.

He aims at the head of the first one, a tall, scrawny man with only one eye. He squeezes the trigger, feeling the pistol kick back, and watches the soldier go down, the top of his head a red ruin. He switches targets and fires at the second of the group, sending it to a similar fate. By this time, Percy and Annabeth are in and amongst them, hacking and slashing with sword and dagger. The other five of the strange soldiers don't stand a chance.

* * *

"What the hell were they?" Reacher asks, as he grabs a clean-looking M16 from a dead soldier. It's fitted with an M203 grenade launcher underneath it, both fully loaded.

"Zombies. You can die in Tartarus, but you turn into one of them when you do. These were probably war criminals or something like that." Annabeth explains, wiping her dagger clean. Reacher pulls off a bulletproof vest that looks intact, as well as the ammo pouches. He manages to get thirteen fully loaded 5.56mm magazines for the M16, as well as seven 40mm grenades for the M203.

"Best not die then." Percy jokes weakly. Reacher guesses that they've purposefully avoided why they are in here. He doesn't want to ask why at the moment though.

"So what are you in here for?" Annabeth suddenly asks him.

"I'm not dead. All I remember is walking in New York, then a small boy with black hair, and a jock with blonde hair called Jason came up to me, and after a brief struggle knocked me out. Then I woke up here." The two teenagers share a look at Reacher's story. Before they can explain more, the phone strapped to Reacher's chest suddenly rang.

* * *

Three hundred yards away, a man watches the three through the lens of a Springfield M1A Super Match, loaded with ten .308 Salt Lake City rounds, fitted with a Leupold Mark 8 scope. He didn't think he'd see someone here to help the two teenagers so soon. He's been watching them for four days now, fighting, eating, drinking, and sleeping. He is intrigued by them, how two seemingly innocent children ended up here. He certainly didn't expect to see Reacher here, at least not yet. Still, he does owe the man, which is why he lowers his rifle from the position he was using, and slings it over his shoulder. He won't kill Jack Reacher, the man who damned him, but also saved him. At least, not yet.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, this story is still going. I haven't died yet. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and all (well, some) will be revealed next chapter. Also, spare a though for Drummer Lee Rigby, the British soldier killed in the brutal Woolwich attack. The people that did it deserve to die, but do NOT blame the entirety of the Islāmic religion. Acts like this are conducted by a tiny minority of the race, and most Muslims are normal, peaceful people like you or me. RIP Lee Rigby**

**Bradykins Out**


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